A Box O’ Burns

We have over 250 member clubs. The project will be rolled out across the whole of Scotland and beyond: wherever there is a Burns club. All clubs and their members will be given the opportunity to participate and work in partnership with local dementia groups and any individuals living with dementia.  

Sessions

Each session is themed around Burns and will include a Burns poem or song, traditional Scots songs, recitations and participatory activities to stimulate conversation and elicit responses.

We shall provide each session with a Box O’ Burns which will contain bespoke project resources and user guides associated with Burns and Scots language: session plans, song lyrics, poems, activity guides, books, sensory objects, digital recordings, craft and art resources etc.,

The sessions are flexible, fun and designed to motivate using humour, skills and creativity. Participants are encouraged to join in with songs and poetry, sensory and creative activities are interactive, but the process and conversation is more important than the end product. Each session belongs to the participants and is monitored and evaluated critically.

When appropriate, we will digitally record reminiscences which can then be shared with wider families and also to assist those whose speaking ability later becomes impaired.

The project will be a form of reminiscence therapy (an idea which has been around since the 1960s) which includes anything that involves discussing and sharing memories and helping recapture the emotions integral to them.  

Why is the project needed?

People living with dementia and their carers can easily become isolated. Family and friends might find it increasingly difficult to talk to them. Equally, looking after someone with dementia can be challenging and heartbreaking. Dementia makes it more and more difficult to remember things, think clearly, communicate, and take care of yourself. In addition, dementia can cause mood swings and even change a person’s personality and behaviour.

Research has examined how music-based therapy can improve social engagement among patients with dementia. Their findings demonstrate that music not only improves dementia patients’ social communication but can also reduce carers’ distress.

Music taps into our implicit memory, linking us to past experiences and emotions without the need for conscious awareness. This is especially true for music that is personally meaningful to us, you’ll all remember a favourite song, that takes you back to a time and place to talk about.

Burns songs and poetry evoke strong memories for many and there are Burns clubs in just about every town in Scotland. Through a co-ordinated programme of activities, supported by the Federation and managed locally by Burns clubs throughout the country, we believe that our carefully planned sessions will contribute significantly to meaningful conversation.  

Developments

Our Federation has members and member clubs all over the world but particularly in the USA, Canada and Australia. We have already had significant interest in the project from members in New York and New Jersey.

Our medium-term goal is to offer ‘Burns in a Box’ to overseas clubs so that they can partner with their local dementia-friendly organisations to replicate the success of what we have started in Scotland. We’ll be offering virtual support to overseas and remote clubs in the UK.

We aim to involve members to professionally record their favourite Burns poem or song to create a repository of songs and music to be used; beautiful Burns songs and traditional childhood songs.

The Box O’ Burns will include professionally designed resources and materials with easily recognisable branding.  Graphic design students from the University of West of Scotland are involved designing the graphics for the physical box and manufacturing a prototype of the box.

To make the project accessible and downloadable, available to a wider global audience we will be developing a virtual Box O’ Burns.

To make the delivery of the project successful it will be necessary to involve a web maintenance manager, freelance drama or music specialist to work alongside the member clubs of RBWF, communities, care homes and educational establishments to develop intergenerational collaborations.  

The project is an integral part of our heritage and cultural life and will be used as a tool for communication to discover the rich and complex lives of people living with dementia.

Neurologist Dr. Ronald Devere notes, “Musical perception, musical emotion, and musical memory can survive long after other forms of memory and cognitive function have disappeared.